I pray that this day of thanks is filled with reminders of blessings and renewal of relationships. Today I was blessed far beyond our celebratory meal and outstanding fellowship. Today I read a document entitled the "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience." I've written much in the past about the meaning and effect of a Christian worldview. The Manhattan Declaration demonstrates what can happen when your mind, your heart, is gripped by Christianity as the explanation of reality, as a worldview. It will burst out of our personal sanctuaries and blow the doors of our corporate sanctuaries. It will cause the Kingdom of God ooze, flow, splatter, and spray over our world - reclaiming territory for King Jesus, putting things back to the way their supposed to be. Below you'll find the preamble to the Manhattan Declaration which briefly documents the profound preserving and advancing influence of Christianity on western culture. This is much more than a profession of Christian ideas. In this act of declaration Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical Christians have joined together out of a common understanding of what is really real and how that understanding ought to be lived out by real believers. I urge you to read the complete document and if it agrees with your convictions about the way things ought to be, to sign it and pass it on.
Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.
While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.
After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.
In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.
This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes – from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.
Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.
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